Guggman Haus Brewing Co. has turned yeast selection, usually the quiet, unglamorous part of brewing, into the actual headline with this release. Hazy Days Route #50 is one half of a true side-by-side comparison, brewed with the brewery's general house Juice Yeast strain, the same one behind most of their hazy IPA lineup, and dry-hopped with Citra and Simcoe.
The result is bursting with sweet citrus, tropical fruit, and peach, a fairly classic hazy profile at 6.6% ABV, and that familiarity is exactly the point. Route #50 exists as the known quantity, the control against which its sibling batch gets measured, brewed identically apart from the yeast doing the fermenting.
It's a small thing to build a release around, but yeast strain arguably shapes a hazy IPA's character as much as the hop bill does, and Indianapolis's Guggman Haus deserves credit for actually showing the work instead of just telling you about it. Small batch experiments like this are how a brewery's house style gets refined in the first place.
Available now at the main taproom in a small batch alongside its counterpart, Route #51, brewed the same day with a different yeast entirely.
Try them side by side if you can. Somebody in that taproom probably has strong opinions on which one wins.